by Meghan March
I open my mouth to scream, but bury my face in the duvet to muffle the sound. If anyone were to interrupt us, I might commit murder.
My orgasm tears through me, and with the constant pressure on my clit, the waves of pleasure don’t stop. I lose track of time as Logan continues to fuck me into oblivion. My elbows give out and I collapse onto my forearms. When he pulls out, I open my mouth to protest, but before I can form words, he flips me onto my back.
“I’m not done with you. Not even close.”
He lifts me up and slides me down his hard body. My hands wrap around his cock and guide it inside me again.
Fuck. Me.
With both hands gripping my ass, Logan lifts and lowers me, powering inside with each stroke.
The pressure on my clit unleashes wave after wave of pleasure. My nails dig into his shoulders as I scream out with another shattering orgasm. Moments later, Logan throws his head back and roars out his own climax.
When he carefully lowers me back to the bed, I’m pretty sure I’ve been fucked to death. My eyelids flutter as he pulls out and steps away, but I don’t move.
I never want to move again.
Warm heat glides between my legs, and I open my eyes. Logan’s cleaning me up with a washcloth.
He’s sweet too, I think, just before I pass out.
* * *
Someone knocking on the door wakes me up, but all I want to do is pull a pillow over my head and go back to sleep.
Heat radiates from the man beside me. Logan’s dark head is turned away, and I’m thankful the pounding hasn’t woken him. This is one morning after I have no idea how to handle.
Last night was amazing. Beyond amazing, if I’m being honest. And yet I have absolutely no idea what I’m supposed to do now. I screwed up. I totally screwed up.
I one-nighted the nicest, most genuine guy I’ve ever met and had amazing sex, and now it’s over.
What is wrong with me?
The knocking comes again.
I don’t need to listen to Mrs. Frances deliver a morning-after lecture either. But the upside? If she’s outside my door, at least she survived the night, and I didn’t cause a heart attack with my screaming.
My phone starts next, and that I’m definitely not ignoring. It’s the Golden Girls theme song, and that ringtone only belongs to one person—my best friend, Greer.
I roll off the bed, grab my phone from the nightstand, and snag the first shirt I see before tiptoeing out of the room. I pull the door far enough closed not to make it squeak, and pull on Logan’s white T-shirt before I answer.
“What’s goin’ on, G?”
I want to blurt out everything that has happened since I talked to her last, but I know what she’s dealing with is so much more important. Besides, how do I tell her I just added Logan Brantley to the notches on my bedpost? God, I suck.
She’s going to want answers about what’s happening next, and I don’t have any. Nope. All I have is a night of memories, and no freaking clue what to do now.
“Sorry. Did I wake you?”
“Um, yeah. No biggie. What’s going on?” I say in a low voice, trying to keep my voice down so I don’t wake Logan.
“I’m outside your door,” Greer says, and my gaze darts toward it.
“Oh. Shit. Okay. Hold on.”
I race to the door, unhook the chain, and throw the dead bolts before opening it just enough to peek out.
She takes one look at me in what is clearly not my shirt, and her eyebrows go up. “Am I interrupting?”
Her tone is nonjudgmental, but that doesn’t matter when I’m so busy beating myself up over what I did.
I shake my head but keep the door where it is. If I tell Greer who is in my apartment, she’s going to want details, and I don’t want to admit that I treated him exactly like every other guy, which is the opposite of what I promised myself I would do. As much as I can use my best friend’s advice right now, this is something I have to deal with myself.
“No, of course not. You’re never an interruption. What’s up?”
From behind me, I can hear Logan say my name from the bedroom. His voice gets louder as he comes into the living room, and my grip on the door tightens. Please don’t come out here.
I slide the door closed a fraction of an inch, strike a casual pose, and turn the conversation back to Greer. “What’s happening? You’re awfully dressed up for an unemployed Saturday morning. When did you get back? Did they give a cause of death? What’s happening?”
My leg bounces of its own accord, mostly because I want to spring through this space between us and hug my friend and spill my guts like I normally would, but it’s time for me to fix my own damn problems. At least I’m not dealing with funeral arrangements like she is.
I force my leg to still, but Greer is eyeing me like I’m acting crazy. Luckily for me, crazy is actually my normal.
“Uh, yesterday. Not yet on the autopsy. I just wanted to see if you were up for grabbing lunch. But we can do it tomorrow or whenever.”
I nod at her suggestion. Maybe tomorrow I’ll have my shit figured out. And tomorrow Logan will be gone, because I one-nighted the only guy who has ever liked me for me. Good job, Banner.
The thought slams into me like a gut punch. I pull myself together enough to answer Greer.
“Tomorrow’s good. I want all the details. Call me?”
I hear Logan again behind me and I panic, smiling and shutting the door on my best friend.
Now I have to face what I did. Well, the man I did, anyway.
It’s official. I suck at life.
Chapter 15
Logan
I watch as Banner closes the door and turns around to rest her back against it. “Was there a reason you didn’t want Greer to know I was here?”
Her gaze jerks up to mine. “She doesn’t need to know.”
“Why’s that?” I’m not sure why I ask, because part of me can already see the writing on the wall.
“I just . . . I didn’t want her to think . . .”
Memories of hiding in a closet when I was seventeen while Tessi Lee’s father stormed into her bedroom come rushing back and hit me hard. I didn’t used to be the kind of guy a girl wanted to be with out in the open before, and it seems that even though over a dozen years have passed since that incident, Banner Regent sees me the same way as girls in Gold Haven did when I was a teenager going nowhere fast.
For some fucked-up reason, I want to hear her admit it. “Didn’t want her to think what?”
Banner shrugs. “You’ve met Greer. She likes to work out everything in her head, and if she saw you here she’d have questions, and I don’t have answers. She’d undoubtedly make this into a huge deal, and it doesn’t need to be.”
I know I’m kidding myself to think it’s going to make a difference, but I tell her what I’m thinking anyway. “I don’t know about you, but last night was a pretty big deal to me.”
Her gaze drops to the floor. “But that doesn’t mean anything changes today. We have totally different lives.” As if she found the balls to tell me to my face, Banner finally meets my eyes. “We can still be friends, though, right?”
Her words hit me with more force than I anticipated. I turn on my heel and head for the bedroom. After grabbing my jeans, I yank them on and snag my wallet and phone off the nightstand. Banner watches from the doorway.
“Friends?” I say, my tone harsh. “Is this how you treat your friends? Why should I be surprised one night is all I’m good for?”
She crosses her arms over her chest—over my damn shirt. “That’s not what I mean—”
“Then what do you mean, Banner? How ’bout you explain it to the dumb redneck slowly, in small words.”
“What else can we possibly be but friends when I live here and you live in BFE?”
I cross my arms to match her posture. “I guess we’ll never know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t fucking apologize for deciding that you can�
��t open your eyes for five seconds to realize that this wasn’t just another hookup. But I guess that’s why you didn’t want Greer to know. Didn’t want to explain that you fucked the redneck. What would she think of you then?”
Banner drops her hands, but they’re balled into fists. “You’re twisting my words. I didn’t mean—”
“I’m pretty sure you don’t have a fucking clue what you mean. If you’ll just give me my shirt, I’ll get the hell out of your way. I got a long drive back to BFE.”
She looks down at the T-shirt and back up at me. “Maybe—”
Honest to Christ, I don’t want to hear any more. My pride has already taken enough of a beating. Fuck the shirt.
“Never mind. Keep it.”
Her face falls. “I’m sorry, Logan. I didn’t mean to—”
“Save it. I’m done here.”
But she’s already stripping it over her head and tossing it at me.
“Just take it.”
Her voice shakes on the last word as I force myself to look away from her naked body. A dumb redneck like me should probably be happy I got to have her for one night. But the funny thing is, I wanted more, and now it just pisses me off.
“Have a nice life, Banner. Good luck with whatever the fuck you’re doing.”
With my shirt clutched in my hand, I stride to the door and don’t look back.
Chapter 16
Banner
Karma is such a bitch.
This week is supposed to be an amazing one. I’m supposed to be approving the prototypes as they finish the testing phase, and gearing up to schedule my first production run.
But one of the models had a minor malfunction, so after some quick fixes, the factory was supposed to send a replacement. Instead, they sent two dozen. To my office. The boxes were stacked up all around my cube, and when my asshole cube neighbor decided to open one, chaos ensued.
Now I’m sitting at the curb on top of a stack of boxes, waiting for a car and driver I’m not going to be able to afford for much longer since I no longer have a job because of some stupid no-moonlighting policy.
If you ask me, it’s a ridiculous policy. Basically, I’m not allowed to have any other kind of employment or business interest that’s not approved in advance, in writing, by the company. Since I didn’t read the employee handbook cover to cover, I wasn’t aware. But I’d signed a statement saying I’d read it and agreed to everything inside.
My explanations and excuses didn’t sway HR or my boss. In fact, they probably helped in the decision to terminate my employment immediately.
Because it bears repeating, I’ll say it again. Karma is a bitch.
It’s been exactly four days since Logan Brantley walked out of my apartment and left me feeling like shit on his shoe. I know it’s my fault, and the guilt has been eating at me.
Maybe if I hadn’t botched that so completely, I wouldn’t have spent this entire week picturing every woman in that Podunk town coming into his garage to get some work done on their chassis.
It’s probably what distracted me into using the autofill address option and picking my office as the ship-to location for the factory.
As rain pelts down on me, I try to find a bright side. I have a lot more time to devote to the work I actually want to do instead of the job that was grinding away at me.
I’ve dumped almost all my cash into my business, but I have enough left in the bank to float me for a short time while I figure out my finances and how I’m going to pay for my life until the first production run is out in the market. My trust fund only allows me to take out a certain amount each year, and I hit that limit for my start-up costs two months ago.
As my car pulls up, I feel a certain sense of relief. Maybe getting fired will be the best thing that ever happened to me. Or I’m going to get evicted, end up living in a cardboard box and eating out of Dumpsters. No. Definitely not.
I’m arranging for the doorman to bring the boxes inside when Frau Frances shuffles into the lobby with Jordana twirling on her leash, and Irene, another of her caretakers, by her side.
Of course, the first thing she spots is me with my file box of crap I cleaned out of my desk.
“Don’t tell me you got fired.”
Her voice carries through the entire lobby, and several heads swivel in my direction as Jude, the daytime doorman, pushes a hand truck full of the other boxes toward the service elevator to deliver to my apartment. Why didn’t I give him this one too?
I try to brazen it out. “Why would you assume I got fired? I could have quit.”
I’m honestly not in the mood to pick a fight with Myrna today, and am relieved when another resident joins us in the elevator. Maybe an audience will tone down her acerbic attitude.
“You’re not dumb enough to quit when you know that the association bylaws and your lease require that to be a resident in this building, you have to be gainfully employed or able to prove that you have regular and substantial income coming in every month from other means, or have a substantial minimum bank balance.”
Her words hit me like a subway train. “Excuse me?”
“Didn’t you read your lease?”
Of course I didn’t, but I can’t tell her that. “That can’t be legal.”
“It is if you agreed to it in writing. I was on the association board when we instituted the change after the dot-com bubble. Too many residents were losing their jobs and life savings, and we didn’t want them taking up space here while we waited to evict them through traditional means. If you’d purchased your apartment when you moved in, you wouldn’t have an issue.”
Jordana pops up on her back feet to paw at my thigh. I bend down to give her a pat, but my heart isn’t in it.
This can’t be right. And why didn’t I buy to begin with? Oh, right, because I thought having a mortgage sounded like a bad idea.
“What does regular and substantial income from other means mean?” I ask her.
“That’s for tenants who live on pensions and such. You have to prove you receive a deposit every month.”
Which wouldn’t be a problem if I’d budgeted for monthly deposits from my trust, but that’s out of the question now, and my bank balance isn’t going to impress anyone.
“Surely there’s some kind of grace period for that. They’re not just going to notify me tomorrow that I have to move out because I got fired.”
The elevator stops on the eleventh floor, and the other female passenger gives both Mrs. Frances and me the side-eye before stepping off.
Surprisingly, Mrs. Frances doesn’t come back at me with both barrels blazing. “I guess you better read the association bylaws and your lease then, because I don’t recall the grace period. That association board has always been cutthroat, and apartments in this building are highly sought after. Do you know how many people are hoping I’ll die so they can buy mine? It’s basically the only reason I get out of bed every day and go do that horrible yoga stuff—so I can live forever and screw them all over.”
I believe every word she says.
Meeting her faded blue eyes, I say, “Please, just . . . don’t say anything to the association. I have a way to make a living. I just need a few months for it to all come together.”
She narrows her gaze on me. “You’re going to become a call girl, aren’t you? Not that you shouldn’t get paid for what you’re giving away for free.”
I choke on air. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying, if that’s how you’re going to make a living, I’m not keeping quiet for that.”
The elevator slows on our floor, and I answer as the doors open. “No. No, I’m not becoming a call girl.”
She harrumphs and trudges down the hall with her cane in hand. “I guess we’ll see about that.”
Before I can counter, Mrs. Frances is already halfway into her apartment with Irene shooting me sympathetic looks over her shoulder and Jordana yipping at the door.
I’m so screwed.
Chapter 17
Logan
I reach into the top of my toolbox to find a pencil, and when my hands touch satin, I mentally kick my own ass. There’s seriously something wrong with a man who steals a pair of panties and keeps them in his toolbox. And probably a special place in hell for the fucker who stops to touch them in the middle of the workday.
Shoving them aside, I grab a pencil and write down the VIN of the car that I just agreed to restore. Something about it is rubbing me wrong, and not just the fact that I don’t know how Lonnie Benson got the cash to buy a ’69 Camaro. He’s gotta be cooking meth in his trailer because I would have heard if he’d won the lottery.
My job isn’t to speculate, and a basic restoration that promises to bring me at least five grand in profit isn’t something I can turn down, so I took the job. But first, I’m going to run the VIN to make sure the car isn’t stolen. That’s the last thing I need to get tangled up with.
When the lead on my pencil breaks, I reach back into the top of my toolbox and once again feel the fabric of the panties I’ve sworn every day I’ll throw away. And yet here I am, alone after another twelve-hour day, and they’re not in the bottom of my trash.
Why haven’t I tossed them? A better question is why in the hell I took them to begin with. Something about Banner Regent fucked me up in a big way.
I’ve tried everything I can think of to stop thinking about her . . . except get rid of the reminder.
The front-door chime rings as I shove the panties under a pair of gloves. I should have locked the door after Lonnie left, but I was too busy checking out the car.
I turn to see Emmy Harris picking her way across the garage, carrying an honest-to-God picnic basket.
“I swear, you’re going to have to leave work one of these days before dark.”
Her curvy body is poured into tight jeans that are tucked into expensive tooled-leather cowboy boots. Not the kind of boots she’d wear to the restaurant either, because they look way too fancy. There’s nothing about her outfit that says I was just in the neighborhood.
